Subscriptions & postal

PPA's Customer Direct group is concerned with issues related to delivering one-to-one marketing expertise and the development of mutually beneficial long term relationships directly between publisher and end user (business or consumer)

The group is made up of subscriptions, circulation and marketing professionals from UK publishing companies, within both the business media and consumer sectors.

The committee direct and advise on Customer Direct - a one day conference and evening awards ceremony which this year will take place on 20 November.

Watch this space or email Emma Turner at PPA for details of the forthcoming event!

The Committee's recent achievements

1)The Loyalty Challenge: How consumer magazine subscriptions work
A research report exploring consumer attitudes into subscriptions
- Essential reading for anyone interested in how consumers purchase magazines!

2)Christmas PR Campaign 2007 - Consumer facing PR campaign to promote awareness of subscriptions as a means of purchase. The campaign which ran around Christmas focussed on a magazine subscription as a fantastic gift idea.

'Beyond the Subscription: tracking the customer journey' the group's most ambitious research project to date, was launched at Magazines and Business Media 2008 on 7 May.

Objectives for 2008

PPA’s Customer Direct has clear objectives for 2008, aiming to increase and build on achievements made in 2007. The group is chaired by Jess Burney, subscriptions director of BBC Magazines . Key areas currently being tackled are as follows:

Growing the percentage of consumer sales within overall total UK circulation sales
Developing events including Customer Direct 2008
PR campaign 2008, including Christmas PR campaign